2014 has certainly been a “game of two halves” as the football commentators say with the first half of the year producing fantastic growth across so many businesses. Some of this growth was lost in the second half, with a disappointing September for some schools. While many will say this is due to good weather, economics or even political matters, we have still seen many astonishing increases in business from some schools. I am confident that success is in the hands of our industry and all of us committed to making this the best this industry can be, and we will be doing our part to help you realise your dreams for 2015.
A few weeks ago the Chancellor gave us his view of the UK’s economic picture for 2015 in his Autumn Statement. Whatever we may think of the Chancellor or his team in the treasury, it is pretty tough to figure out how “UK plc” and all the business operators in it will perform. Growth is always a key issue and this will be vital to understand the Government’s tax take. You may say that for Mr Osborne it is all mere speculation at best and a finger in the air at worst. A cynical view some might say but guessing what we all will achieve in 2015 to estimate tax receipts will always be a really tough call.
However, while the Government have to estimate the totality of the economy’s performance we in the SME world understand our businesses and our market in detail so, in theory, you have the edge on the Chancellor when estimating the sales you can, and want, to achieve in each or all of your Martial Arts School locations. In addition, you can decide on what action to take on a regular and practical basis to ensure that you stay on track.
In the outgoing year we have delivered our new myMA management system, free text messaging and our on-line consumer booking system (Get Into Martial Arts). These have been major technological developments in themselves and they will create a platform for further developments to help you to get and keep students. We have much planned for 2015 and we are looking forward to sharing those plans with you in the near future.
Having your own plans in place for next year will be crucial to your success and that is why we have provided the Sales Planner and the Marketing planner in the myMA marketing toolkit for you to download.
You will have also received the large printed calendar/planner sent out by post to you last week – I hope that you will use this to plan your year ahead and to help you realise the success you deserve.
Having a clear understanding of what you want to achieve next year, and the key components that you need to measure will always give you the edge providing you commit yourself to achieving success. Don’t just be involved, be fully committed to your future; by being committed I mean that you will:
- Know what success looks like by having created meaningful and S.M.A.R.T. goals to aim for;
- Measure your performance constantly
- Know when to take action and what to do if you stray off track
- Be comfortable asking for help if you are not sure what action to take
- Reward yourself for success if you keep on track
Being in control and having your targets in place is always important but at this time of year the action of setting these is not only great business practice it will help you to be the driver of your future success. If you fail to commit you will only commit to fail – just commit to success and be a winner.
